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Connect with Kelly
https://pannaknows.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/krob/

Connect with Russ
https://russjohns.com/
https://thepiratesyndicate.com/
https://nextstepnext.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nextstepnext/

Audio digitally transcribed by Descript

Introduction: [00:00:00] Welcome to the #PirateBroadcast™, where we interview #interestingpeople doing #interestingthings. Where you can expand your connections, your community, #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree. Let’s get this party started.

Russ Johns: [00:00:10] As another day of conversation before the show that all of a sudden we're like we should go live.

Kelly Robinson: [00:00:17] I am great. I love your intro. I love the smiles and the kindness. I love it. So it's so true. And it's cool.

Russ Johns: [00:00:26] The funny thing about it is I was saying that years ago, And it's just been consistent over time. It's just been once in a while, you see those Facebook posts that come up from six years ago or whatever it happens to be, and same thing, same message. And then it's just have to carry it on. Just keep it going. Somebody listens and pays attention.

Kelly Robinson: [00:00:48] Yeah. When it's starting to become like a thing now, people are like but that's really cool, right? Because that's what you, that's what you're doing. It's like this butterfly effect, you put something out, right? You do something nice for someone. Then that person does something nice. It's like this whole, you smile, feels good.

Russ Johns: [00:01:05] Yeah. Changes your whole day, your whole outlook. Like you say, hustle, stay humble.

Kelly Robinson: [00:01:14] Yeah. It's when I go to bed, something that I do that's important for me to practice is I smile and I think about all of the things. And if it's something that was like worrying me, I smile thinking about what I find something good in it. And I smile, thinking about, if I miss someone, like last night, I was thinking I miss someone and then I was like, you know what, let's turn this around and smile about the memories I had. And so that's what I did. I smiled, so weird, but it does, it helps.

Russ Johns: [00:01:49] Yeah. That and #gratitude. #Gratitude makes a huge impact on what's going on in your world.

Kelly Robinson: [00:01:55] It does.

Russ Johns: [00:01:55] Kelly. Thank you for coming back as a pirate and doing a #PirateBroadcast. So what have you been up to? What is bringing you joy? I know that you have an active group on LinkedIn that is making an impact in the world and doing some great stuff. So give us an update on what's happening in the world of Kelly.

Kelly Robinson: [00:02:16] Do you know when I was on last? I don't know if you keep track.

Russ Johns: [00:02:19] I should look it up, but, it was like a year ago. Absolutely.

Kelly Robinson: [00:02:23] Okay. So I have a community that I started that I love that you are part of Russ. Thank you. It's called my VAB my virtual advisory board. It's just a community of amazing entrepreneurs and I just have kicked it off about a year ago. But some really great things have happened from it and it's evolved over time. It's different than what I thought it was going to be.

Russ Johns: [00:02:48] You thought you were going to run it.

Kelly Robinson: [00:02:49] I just thought it was different. I thought it was going to be this online community where everything was online, but what I found out was it is online, but it turned into I have events and all kinds of things that I'm doing that's bringing entrepreneurs together and we've had three or four folks that came in. So it's entrepreneurs and senior executives, and we've had three or four senior executives that have come in and have decided to start their own business. And it's not just because of my VAB but it's also, it's they see that people are doing this and they can do it and they have support and they have, people like just people there. Cause when you're an entrepreneur, you know what it's like? Sometimes you feel like you're like just on an Island by yourself, right?

Russ Johns: [00:03:37] What's really fascinating to me and I struggle with this, I'm going to be transparent because I have been doing the solo gig thing for well over a decade. And it's not my first trip, I've been in and out of corporate organizations and large businesses and employee, employer relationship. And what I have a big challenge with is not being able to do the work as much as being able to delegate the work. And so having and seeing other people do that and growing their business from a solopreneur to an entrepreneur is another step in the evolution. And it's not always easy. So having help and having some feedback and having some, at least a roadmap, is really important as well.

Kelly Robinson: [00:04:34] It is. So I was lucky enough to run a company for someone else. So she was the entrepreneur and I was able to run the company, so we grew it massively. And so lucky enough for me, I had to learn how to let go, because when you have 40 some recruiters and 30 some clients you have to, so I learned how to delegate and how to build a support team and duplicate some of my duties and things like that, which is really important to growing a business. So when I started my own business one of the things that was really important to me, there are a couple things, but one was to try to duplicate myself as quickly as I could. And the other was to make sure that I'm spending money, investing, I believe you have to invest.

Russ Johns: [00:05:25] Reinvest.

Kelly Robinson: [00:05:26] You have to. You have to continue to invest. You have to spend money to make money. I just believe that. So those were two things that were really important to me. I was lucky enough to have that experience before where I understood the value of it and I was able to take the risk of letting go, which is scary.

Russ Johns: [00:05:42] It's scary. Like to just get it done, just go roll up your sleeves and get it done. Take action.

Kelly Robinson: [00:05:49] We call that gumption. So that's our first value. Our values are grit and grace and the first G in grit is gumption. And it stands for, we get shit done.

Russ Johns: [00:05:59] Get shit done. So you started this group board. A lot of people settting great examples. A lot of people taking initiative, a lot of people contributing. So what was the thing that you saw that was really a game changer for you over the last year?

Kelly Robinson: [00:06:16] I think seeing our executives become entrepreneurs is amazing.  And then feeling supported is great. The other thing is there are people that are doing business with each other now, which is really nice. And I have some testimonials that I'll put up soon. I love to see the camaraderie and people are supportive and I've made sure not to pick people that kind of do the same thing. Cause you don't want that. I don't want it to become like a wholesales show. But the other thing is I have the events that we do every month are called, The My Bad Connect and we have someone speak. So it could be a member or board member or could be an external participant and they come and speak, and those are really well attended. And that's just like anything about entrepreneurship that we can share. And then there's some networking. So I've just seen because of COVID too. There's a lot of people that they know how to do zoom. They're comfortable now with the videos and they don't mind doing that. So I've seen them come together, but what's fascinating is they're coming together from all over the nation and even the world.  That to me, even as like a side of my VAB like push that aside for me, COVID has really enabled like me to get on LinkedIn even more so when I was doing it before COVID, but  people are now receptive. I friends all over the world.  I was talking to a group of Australians last night at 9:00 PM.

Russ Johns: [00:07:46] It's amazing.  It continues to be amazing. And the relationships that you've built and you grown and continue to run into is just phenomenal in my opinion. And the one challenge that I know I run up against, because I know you're busy as well is just feeling like you have enough time to dedicate to those relationships and those communications and those connections and stepping onto a live stream like this, and thank you so much for being here because it does take time and it's really satisfying to me to have those connections and watch people grow and support them in a way that maybe we wouldn't have 10 years ago, it's not the same thing. And I just think we're living in the most amazing time because of it. And the opportunities are just endless in my opinion.

Kelly Robinson: [00:08:46] So  this is your platform and this is a way for you to stay connected. So we're spending time together now. You're spending time with me. You're learning about me, but, I'm not learning enough about you. So we need to figure that out. But the show is, it's not a give and take, but my platform, which is great, is the my VAB community. So when I want to reach out to someone, I don't have to go through an email and I don't have to go through LinkedIn anymore. I can message you there and it feels more direct. The other thing is video because we have video now. For me, when you talk to someone, it's better than the phone.

Russ Johns: [00:09:27] It is better than the phone.

Kelly Robinson: [00:09:29] Yeah. It's not as good as in-person, but it saves a lot of time.

Russ Johns: [00:09:35] It does save a lot of time.

Kelly Robinson: [00:09:36] I'm going to keep doing zoom. Like I'm not into the coffees where, except for there's some like really near and dear friends that I have that I'll go see for a long time, but this is easier.

Russ Johns: [00:09:46] Yes, much easier. And I don't have to drive across town and be in traffic for an hour.

Kelly Robinson: [00:09:52] Especially where you are. That's right.

Russ Johns: [00:09:54] When I was in Houston, there were times where it. I would be sitting in traffic forever. And sometimes you make it, sometimes you don't and it's crazy. So I want to say hi to a few people here. Juan, thank you so much for being here. Appreciate it. And we got a Chamara, smile change your whole day. I like that, a genuine one, like you and mine, yours and mine. Absolutely. Warren is in the house. Making the choice. Absolutely positively, making the choice. Robert, coffee with Bob. That good morning, Russ and Kelly. Thank you so much. #Gratitude is so important. Just posted on that this morning. Fantastic. Good morning, all in my side of the world. It's 1930. So it's evening there. And Kelly's last show was June 23rd, 2020. Tracie. I love you. Thank you so much for being my producer. Thank you all. Good morning. Angie. Thank you so much. Glad you could catch the show. Hope you're well. Love that you're here. And then can you clarify making duplicate Kelly?

Kelly Robinson: [00:11:11] I can clarify. So do you see Nicole Goddard under there?

Russ Johns: [00:11:14] Nicole? Yes, good morning, Nicole .

Kelly Robinson: [00:11:16] She's my duplicate. She's my partner. So what I did was about a year after starting the business I realized that I needed to go from solopreneur to entrepreneur, you need support. And so what I did was I thought, you know what? I really need a partner. And this is a good way to recruit a really strong person. Give them a little bit of ownership over a piece of the services, over, the entity and let them learn, train and run with it and grow into an executive role. Nicole, I had worked with before. A lot of my people I've worked with before and Nicole I'd worked with before. And so COVID hit, she got laid off from her corporate recruiting job and I said, I really need someone to come in and when I hired her, Russ, I said to her you're not working, so maybe I might have 10 or 20 hours. Boom. Literally one week, we exploded and now we're hiring, now she's got recruiters, like a whole group of recruiters. So that's  duplicating so that I can go out and grow, which includes all the marketing and this, and then also run the business.

Russ Johns: [00:12:28] That's a duplication. Yeah. Tracie has been asking to grow and she's been looking to have me delegate more stuff and I'm working on that as we speak and working on duplication and growth. So there's a couple of pieces of the puzzle I need to fill in. And it's fun. It's amazing. It's a challenge, you have to work through it and it's something that you have to do in order to scale and grow. So my goal is I want to produce, with the #PirateSyndicate, I want to be producing by the end of the year, a hundred shows a month.

Kelly Robinson: [00:13:05] That's amazing. Wow.

Russ Johns: [00:13:09] Think of it. Think of it.  If I train producers to produce shows like this, right? Cause I've produced and Tracie has produced over 400 shows of the #PirateBroadcast and the system to book to get on the show, it's pretty simple, pretty straightforward, right? And the process is pretty straight forward. And so there's a lot of business owners, like you say, that are comfortable with video. Now they need to get their message out and they need to scale. So what better way to then to have your own platform and your own show where you can actually share some knowledge in people that you want to talk to anyway, invite them onto the show is a lot different than saying, Hey, let's get on a sales call for 20 minutes. It's a lot easier to say, hey let's jump on a show. I want to interview you. I love it. And then, so training several producers to produce shows and have Tracie run the operations on. That would be wonderful.

Kelly Robinson: [00:14:05] So what does a program look like for you Russ?

Russ Johns: [00:14:10] What is the program?

Kelly Robinson: [00:14:12] What does that program like? How would someone enroll in that program and get trained and get a...

Russ Johns: [00:14:17] It's pretty straight forward. We engage, you sign up for it. It's $2,000 a month. It's $500 an episode for four episodes, a weekly episode. We do the social media posts for the show. We promote the show. We build the strategy help you identify your look, your feel, your branding, all of the things that are included in that process. And then we set it up for you. We get you on a regular basis. We startinviting your guests, or you invite your guests. And then we build the show out and we continue to grow that. And slowly we build up, then you have, as a result, you have the video feed, you have an audio that can go to your podcast. And then you just start building the authority in the market as a result of showing up every week. And you've seen it time and time again on LinkedIn live. People that getLinkedInLive, they're just showing up, they're doing their show and you may not get thousands of people on your live show. However, the conversations that you start and the relationships you build and the people that show up and look at it and show up later on, it just continues to build on itself.

Kelly Robinson: [00:15:31] I love that. So you're basically giving them a show, a platform to have a show, and you're doing all the marketing for them and it goes to everywhere, right? LinkedIn, Facebook, YouTube, all of that.

Russ Johns: [00:15:44] If they don't have LinkedIn live, we have to work around that. We can show up on YouTube. We can show up on Facebook or you can show up on Twitter. We can show up on Twitch. We can show up on a number of platforms.  And we can get you there. So the reality is that you have to start somewhere. However, the beautiful thing about it is just like you this morning, you just came to the microphone. You turned on your camera, you turned on your lights, you turned on whatever you needed to be. You filled up your coffee and all of a sudden you have a show. Everything else was done for you.

Kelly Robinson: [00:16:19] And if you saw what I looked like 15 minutes before. Nicole, she's seen the five minute transition. She's like, how'd you do that? Oh my God. Don't worry about it.

Russ Johns: [00:16:29] Magic. It's magic.

Kelly Robinson: [00:16:31] I'm not gonna worry about. I love that idea. I think it's brilliant. So the LinkedIn live, they have to have the room because you can't use someone else's, I get it.

Russ Johns: [00:16:41] You can, and I have, I think that LinkedIn once you start creating content, I think LinkedIn live will become available to more people. You just have to have something out there that is producing results and you have to have some evidence that you're going to be consistent. That's what LinkedIn is looking for. Somebody who's going to be consistent.

Kelly Robinson: [00:17:01] And it's much easier now to get it. It used to be when you got it and Ira, some of those first people, it was hard for them. It wasn't easy. Some people have had to apply multiple times and now I think it's a bit easier if you have the right, if you have a concept, like you said, if you have a concept and you've got some people that, will engage and have some things out there, so you can also help them apply for LinkedIn by giving them pointers and helping them do all the concept.

Russ Johns: [00:17:31] And the goal, going back to you roriginal question, how would I do a hundred shows is I can help with the strategy and then, okay, I hand it over to Tracie and Tracie delegates it to the producers and navigates through that whole operational piece, which she's so good at. And like you said, you need to work on the marketing and running the business and Nicole is the duplicate, right?

Kelly Robinson: [00:17:56] You should have Nicole on your show and she can tell you about what it's like to be that person that's, I won't watch cause  there might be some curse words or...

Russ Johns: [00:18:05] Damn, Kelly, she's always driving me. So Nicole, I'll send you a link.

Kelly Robinson: [00:18:13] I hope she's still on, but yeah, she's busy, so it was nice to see her jump on there to support. Yeah. She's a great gal.

Russ Johns: [00:18:20] So Howard Kaufman appreciate the insights. Yes. You do feel that you are killing it sometimes on a deserted Island, but where's the professor? I don't know, where's the professor? Sheri Lally says, love to see smiling pirate faces in the morning while I fill orders. I love it. Chamara, thanks, Kelly. Appreciate that. Kelly says Tracie is amazing. Yes, I totally agree. Nicole says intention. She smiles. Oh my gosh. Thank you.

Kelly Robinson: [00:18:55] She's on. She's Listening.

Russ Johns: [00:18:56] Join us. Connect and  I'll send you a link. But it's a simple process. It's a simple process. And Kelly you just have to put yourself out there sometimes even when you may not necessarily feel like it, you may not necessarily want to do it at that point in time. However, I've done over 400 shows, 400 episodes and talk to some amazing, incredible people and I have more incredible people on the way. And I just think it's a way that others can be inspired by people like yourself. I want to shine the light on you guys and the people that are doing great work. Thanks for being here.

Kelly Robinson: [00:19:33] Yeah. First of all, you're one of those people, I think I've told you this before, that you make me smile. There's a couple people that I see that just make me smile. Like they make me happy. Michael Ray, do you know Michael Ray?

Russ Johns: [00:19:46] He's a pirate as well.

Kelly Robinson: [00:19:47] Just looking at him. Just looking at him. The other night, I called him on the phone and he like FaceTimes me cause he needs to see, and I'm like, I'm sitting on the couch, and he's having like his bourbon and a cigar, it was really cute. But like someone like him, I looked like crap, but he made me feel and I was just ...

Russ Johns: [00:20:06] It doesn't matter.

Kelly Robinson: [00:20:07] made me feel immediately better. You , Alon Zaibert, there's just some people that just I just, I don't know what it is. It's Alon Zaibert . I don't know if you know him, but it's like, he has this...

Russ Johns: [00:20:20] I don't know if I do.

Kelly Robinson: [00:20:22] Oh, you would love him Russ.

Russ Johns: [00:20:24] Introduce us.

Kelly Robinson: [00:20:25] I will. I will. So he has a phrase that he's trademarked called emotional relevance and it's exactly what I just said. It's the feeling that you connect to the person  when you think about them. So if I think about him, I smile and it's because it's very intentional on his part. He does sales, right? So he teaches salespeople how to create relationships and how to make people feel like, Oh, Russ, it's Russ Johns, like, you see what I mean? It's  like when you think of Michael Ray, smile? 

Russ Johns: [00:20:57] Yeah, exactly.

Kelly Robinson: [00:20:59] Emotional relevance. Isn't that interesting? He's great. You'll love it.

Russ Johns: [00:21:04] Yes. Yes. We'll have to have him on the #PirateBroadcast™.

Kelly Robinson: [00:21:08] Yeah. He's a great dude. You just really, you'll enjoy him.

Russ Johns: [00:21:11] Fantastic. What a fun pirate convo. Thank you for joining the ship. Kelly. Welcome. Thank you so much. Nicole says I've never heard that the thought of creating a duplicate until Kelly mentioned it and it makes so much sense. Now we're working to duplicate me and duplicate that person and so forth. So that's one of the terms in my toolbox. Also good to hear that someone wants to duplicate you. So it motivates you. Absolutely motivates me. The beautiful thing about it is that we have an opportunity to share the body of knowledge that we've acquired over years of experience, and it's not all good experience. So sometimes the worst experience is the best teacher. And so if we can accelerate that education and part that to someone else that can grow and achieve results from it. Why not? What's the downside. There's not a downside

Kelly Robinson: [00:22:14] There isn't. I'm just writing down to do an intro to Alon for you, Russ.  The the wisdom is what you learn, it's learning through experience and that's good and bad. And you have the wisdom, it's from doing, it's from learning. My company's name is Panna Knows. Panna is a Pally. Sanskrit is like an Indian Sanskrit language and it means wisdom, which means learning through experience. So that's how I built this company is very customer friendly. So I don't have this little box that we say, here's what we have to offer. You want it, or don't want it. You're going to fit in here. I say, what do you need? Let me figure out a solution. Let me see if we can do that and then give them some options and work with them. So through my experience, I've learned you can't, you can offer this little box, but you're going to get a lot more nos.

Russ Johns: [00:23:08] Yeah. Yeah. And like anything, if you follow all the gurus out there and all the knowledge work, all the courses that you can go through, one's going to have an opinion that's 180 degrees out of the other one. So I think what it really boils down to, and this is what I teach people in the courses of podcasting and broadcasting and building a show is you gotta find your groove. You gotta find what's comfortable for you. And then stay in that groove. And this practice, it's like an instrument, it's like a musical instrument. Continue to practice and just continue to improve. It doesn't have to be perfect. Starting is the most important piece of the puzzle. Taking action is most important piece of the puzzle, not perfection that you get stuck on. Oh, I need to move this pixel over here. It's always a stumbling block and you just need to let it go and move forward and get it done.

Kelly Robinson: [00:24:05] People I hear a lot say I want to start my own business and just, I'm getting everything in line, getting all my ducks in a row and I need this and I need that and I need this. And I'm like, no you don't, just go because it's going to show you anyway. One foot in front of the other, just keep going. It's going to change. You're going to need to be agile and adjust. Look what Wendy says. Wendy says turning a bad lesson into a blessing. It says it only requires changing a few letters. In other words, that's so funny. Oh my gosh, I love it. That's great, Wendy.

Russ Johns: [00:24:39] I love that. Blessing.

Kelly Robinson: [00:24:42] That's cool. You got to learn from everything.

Russ Johns: [00:24:45] Nicole says, a hundred percent. I've learned more from my bumps in the road than the smooth experiences.

Kelly Robinson: [00:24:52] That's right.

Russ Johns: [00:24:53] We learn them. It's a hard lesson at the time. However, it's a long experience because we know it well. Kelly, it's always a pleasure to hang out with you. You bring me joy and I love your energy, and I love the things that you're doing in the group. You got an event coming up. Tell us about that before we wrap up today.

Kelly Robinson: [00:25:16] So My VAB, My Vibe  so the event is called my Vibe, the group is my VAB, but we're calling it the,\ My VAB, My Vibe. It is virtual #inspiration from bad ass entrepreneurs. And if you follow me on LinkedIn, you'll see  I'm working out the kinks of defining bad-ass every day. So it's been really fun. But it's a group of amazing entrepreneurs, many people that Russ, you probably know many of them. Alon is one, Rachel Beck Michael Ray Jared Greer, who's phenomenal. He's a coach for Nicole and I. Scotty Schindler, who's a coach of mine as well. It's a great group. So what I have is it's a block of time. Tickets are free and I can post after the fact I'll post the the link to register. Tickets are free. It's a five-hour block of time, so it's not something you're going to sit and watch. It's not like you're going to an event. It's something to have on in the background. And when you see a face pop up that you think, oh, I want to hear, then you watch. So you just keep it on in the background. It's not something I'm expecting everyone to sit like for five hours. So I'm posting that with my buddy, Alex Sheraton. It's going to be phenomenal. And I hope that people will register and come. We are 60% capacity.

Russ Johns: [00:26:29] And when is it?

Kelly Robinson: [00:26:31] It's next Wednesday.

Russ Johns: [00:26:32] Okay. Yeah. So that's the 12th, isn't it?

Kelly Robinson: [00:26:36] Yes. Yep. It's 11 to four Eastern 11:00 AM to 4:00 PM Eastern. So Scotty Schindler's in Australia, it's one o'clock his time. So he's going to go at one o'clock in the morning. So he's going to go first so that he can go to sleep. It'll be fun though I hope everyone can join us. I think it'd be interesting. And tickets are going fast. So sign up if you'd like to.

Russ Johns: [00:26:57] Fantastic. I really appreciate that. Kelly, as always, introductions sharing, growing, accomplishing big goals and smiling is always important.

Kelly Robinson: [00:27:09] That's right. Thank you, Russ. This was great.

Russ Johns: [00:27:12] Fun. Always fun. Thank you everyone for showing up and being here. If you're watching this in the future, please like, comment and share with anybody that needs to know this information, needs to have this information, could benefit from this information. So do that social thing that we all have to do in order to be seen, be heard and be talked about. And also because #kindnessiscool and #smilesarefree, so you #enjoytheday. Till next time. Take care.

Kelly Robinson: [00:27:45] Bye. Thanks Russ.

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